1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a color integration system for medical images and a recording and a color management apparatus for medical images that can obtain optimal color reproducibility in any device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, medical observation apparatuses, such as an endoscope and a surgical microscope, configured to observe an operated part in medical action, such as surgery, have been widely used. For example, an endoscope is inserted into a body cavity, such as an abdominal cavity and a thoracic cavity, from a small fistula opened on a body surface of a patient, and an organ in the body cavity is treated under endoscopic observation. Such endoscopic surgery is also frequently conducted. The medical observation apparatus includes an image pickup device, and the image pickup device can pick up an image (medical image) inside of the body cavity of the patient. The medical image obtained by picking up the image can be outputted to a monitor or recorded, and the image can be shared among people involved in the surgery, such as a surgeon, an assistant, and a nurse.
Endoscope images used for inspection or treatment during surgery are used for a conference presentation or a case report after the surgery in some cases. One endoscope image is displayed on a plurality of monitors during surgery and is displayed and printed by various monitors, printers, projectors, and the like after the surgery.
In this case, if, for example, a display color of an observation monitor during the inspection or the treatment and an ink display color at submission of the report are different, the surgeon may not be able to properly judge the observation result. Therefore, the surgeon needs to adjust the display color or the print color in each device, and this is very cumbersome.
Note that Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2007-111326 discloses an endoscope system in which image processing for monitor display and image processing for printer printing are applied to an image from an endoscope to obtain favorable image quality in both of the image for display and the image for printing. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2007-336198 discloses a technique in an apparatus configured to convert color with reference to a profile defining a correspondence between colorimetric values and ink amount data, wherein different profiles are created according to the usage and conditions.
In a latest consumer technology, a color profile, such as Exif and ICC profiles, is provided from a manufacturer for each display and each printer, and the color profiles can be transmitted between respective systems to bring the display colors into line with each other regardless of the printer.